A credible EU enlargement policy remains necessary from a geopolitical perspective, but can only succeed through a more pragmatic and gradual integration approach. New members amplify the existing challenges to EU decision making, rule-of-law conditionality and political cohesion, particularly given the circumstances of Russian aggression, hybrid threats and rising nationalist and far-right forces within the Union. Against this backdrop, the highly heterogeneous situations of the Western Balkan states, Ukraine, Moldova and other candidate countries, the unresolved bilateral conflicts, domestic polarisation and relative poverty all shape public scepticism in current member states. This paper rejects ‘buffer-zone’ concepts as a form of capitulation, and instead advocates stepwise integration into the single market, Schengen and selected policies, tied to verifiable reforms, reversible conditionality, and strengthened financial and political support. Such a model would allow differentiated, reversible accession pathways, while giving the EU time to reform its own institutions and decision-making rules, ensuring that enlargement reinforces, rather than undermines, the Union’s capacity to act and its foundational values.